Born in Denmark on 6 May 1921, Kofod-Larsen excelled as a carpenter’s apprentice, graduating top of his class in 1944 before going on to study architecture at Denmark’s prestigious Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. As well as drawing houses, banks and schools, he sketched furniture, glassware, silver and textiles. The prolific designer even turned his hand to designing televisions and radios. His body of work was lauded around the world and exhibited in cities from Copenhagen and Milan to New York and Chicago. After his death at 82 in 2003, his children discovered a vast archive of design sketches and prototypes previously hidden. An intensely private man, Kofod-Larsen shunned publicity, living out his motto, “he who lives hidden, lives well,” and thus he stood in the shadows of many of his peers.